Key component of Victoria
As a key component of Victoria’s $90 billion Big Build(opens in a new window), the Metro Tunnel(opens in a new window) will create additional capacity for more than half-a-million passengers a week during peak periods and transform the way Victorians travel around Melbourne.
This city-shaping project will also create nearly 7,000 jobs, including hundreds for apprentices and trainees.
The Metro Tunnel will connect the upgraded Sunbury line to the Cranbourne and Pakenham lines, with five new underground stations and links to the existing network at key locations.
In preparation for the Metro Tunnel, we’ve added an extra 280 new metropolitan train services and 170 regional services, increasing capacity on the Cranbourne, Pakenham, Frankston, Werribee, Williamstown, Upfield, Craigieburn and Sunbury lines during peak travel times.
Cranbourne and Pakenham line passengers, benefitting from 90 new services each week, will now travel in an anti-clockwise direction through the City Loop all day to pave the way for Melbourne’s bigger, more modern trains.
The Metro Tunnel will separate some of Melbourne’s busiest rail lines, which means we can add more services and ensure delays on one line don’t spread across the network. It also means we can more regularly update the timetable and better respond to growth on specific lines.
In late September 2020, the ground-breaking Metro Tunnel project lived up to its description, with two giant tunnel boring machines breaking through key sections, meaning more than 85 per cent of the tunnelling is now complete.
Thanks to strict coronavirus safety measures on work sites, construction has been able to continue throughout the pandemic.
Visit the Metro Tunnel website(opens in a new window) for the latest information on this project.
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